Romina Meets Rosie: a Bikeurious Odyssey

Delicate handling, dedicated maintenance and a little devotion ...

All essential features that underpin a lasting relationship – whether it’s with a beloved partner that happens to be a bicycle, or a dear friend who happens to live 7,000 miles away in Argentina.

Yes, I can confirm that Rosie and I are still very much in love a year on from our pilgrimage of passion to Wales, and I can also boast that Romina and I are still friends five years on from our brief meeting in Peru.

But, of course, you can only go for so long with short-distance pedalling and long-distance pen-palling before things get a little stale, and so we all perked up when Romina informed us that she was visiting Wales in August! I plunged straight into mapping out a 200-mile coastal route from my family home in the south up to my relatives in the north, which I promptly forwarded to Romina with attached instructions to begin serious hill-cycling preparation. 

But since Romina couldn’t quite fit a road bike into her luggage allowance, Rosie and I were forced into making a serious compromise that could make or break our relationship. It transpired that Rosie wanted to mix things up a little, and so Romina would be straddling her for a week of sweaty girl-on-girl action while I sought solace in brotherhood with my father’s bike – who was soon christened Darío in acknowledgment of his traced Latin origins.

So there we stood all acquainted – Daniel and Darío, Romina and Rosie. And what better way to get bonding during this swinging adventure than to visit, well, the swings? We made our first stop of the day at my childhood park in the village of Login, where we climbed around on the frames before moving on to visit my grandparents nearby. It was here that the trip truly began as we sat down for our first feed of a week that was to feed us well; kicking off with a selection of Mamgu Maesmeini’s homemade cakes and pancakes with a strong cup of tea.  

To complete Monday’s 23-mile stretch, we moved on to Mamgu Blaenffos’s house, where we were rewarded with a hearty nut roast meal before mother turned up to supply us with the de-greaser and lubrication that I had left behind at home ... That’s not even an analogy. Moving on ... We ate apple and blackberry crumble and went to bed.

All woken up with a healthy breakfast, we waved farewell to my grandmother and set off for our second breakfast (classic scrambled eggs on toast) with auntie Lynne, uncle David and cousin Ffion in Aberteifi. We spent our brunch chatting about our northern cousin’s wedding celebrations that would also serve as our week’s climax on Saturday, and perused a map of Wales in order to double-check our route for the day ahead. Then, having reunited with the bikes for a quick photo in the garden, we proceeded to flirt with the Ceredigion coastline en route to lunch in the seaside town of Aberaeron. We were welcomed by a scent of fish and chips, which drafted us through to lunch at a deli kitchen with my auntie Ann, who had afforded us her lunch break for a chat about all things Welsh and Argentinian, with Patagonia in between. Ann then returned to work, but we extended our stay with an hour of reading and eating honey ice cream in the sporadic sunshine along the harbour-front. Darío and Rosie used the time to bond a little too ...

We then braved the showering rain in cycling onwards to Aberystwyth – via some roadside tree canopies for shelter – where we would meet my cousin Gwenllian for tea at the university arts centre. Gwenllian shared her local insight in providing us with a hit-list of places for our evening meal, which we eventually sat down to eat at a Greek restaurant within earshot of the waves crashing over the promenade. Content with our feed for the day, we retreated to the B&B (just bed, no breakfast), where I checked up on Darío and Rosie’s antics in the bike shed before heading up into bed for a Tetley’s nightcap. 

At 57 miles, Wednesday was scheduled in as the longest day of the week – taking us up the winding roads from Aberystwyth to my uncle’s farm in Llanfair, with a couple of seaside stops en route. However, Rosie’s bike computer would later tell us that our day’s total was just 27 miles; which was not a crude miscalculation, but rather was due to a new plan hatched in our roadside refuge from the torrential rain that taunted us for over an hour. So our new plan of action was to counter the day’s miserable forecast by taking a (cheating, yet necessary) train journey along the coast to Bermo, thus cutting out 30 miles of soaked cycling.

But we had to get to Machynlleth first, where the rain continued to harass us as we sought out some sheltered parking – which we eventually found by smuggling Rosie and Darío into the local church and abandoning them to atone for (or possibly compound?) their sins of the previous night. We left an entrusting note of thanks, and ate a warm serving of mushroom stroganoff in a nearby pub before placing the bikes on the train for the trip to Bermo. 

Fast forward to Llanfair, where we arrived at uncle Eurig’s farm bathed in a hazy 6 o’clock sunshine that gently warmed the caravan for our night’s stay and stewed up our appetite for a lasagne dinner expertly cooked by my auntie Sara and cousins Mia, Alice and Melissa. Eurig then proposed an evening activity to enjoy the day’s last light before dessert, and so we decided to take a walk along the beach as the sun set red to both the shepherd’s and cyclists’ delight. I also used the occasion to give Romina and Mia some much-needed stone-skimming instruction, in return for an evening Spanish lesson in the caravan and a morning tour of the farm respectively.

Thursday. 

The penultimate and only strictly scheduled day of the week.
 
So inevitably the most chaotic.

It started with a sleepy amble over to the house, where we slid on our wellies to visit the barn and subsequently found Rosie and Darío cwtched up and tangled in a trio with the farm’s hulking quad-bike. Casting aside our judgement and allowing them time to wallow in their filth, we continued to the pig sty, where I tried to angle my way in among the pigs (with whom Romina claims I share certain eating habits) as they devoured their breakfast. Jess the sheepdog then led us into the field for her star turn as she expertly rounded up the troops in line for Romina to play her part in dishing out their morning feed. 

I always struggle to pull myself away from this farm, and this was evidenced once more as we set off way behind schedule to pay a visit to the majestic Harlech castle en route to our lunchtime stop in Caernarfon.

We didn’t have much time in Caernarfon, but what little we did have was mostly spent queuing up for food in a chip shop as we eagerly (nervously?) anticipated our scheduled activity at 4.30pm – a ride on Europe’s longest and fastest zip wire. But the zip wire was hidden 12 hilly miles away in Bethesda, and we were still in Caernarfon at 3.15. Cue chaos compounded by the lack of a map ... 

We finally found our way onto the rural road, but our bearings were blunted by conflicting directions from well-intentioned locals as we began to panic. The clock was winning, but Romina spotted a car sales company on our way through Bethel and so I rushed in with the hope of finding an informed voice on the best route to take. We did not only find an informed voice, but a genuine gent. Following some initial ribbing about my being a lost ‘hwntw’ (a South Walian), the centre’s manager, Gari, made a saintly offer to drive us over to Bethesda in his van. Within a minute, I was thrust into the back of the van for a bumpy ride with Rosie and Darío while Romina sat up front listening to Gari recount the history of the Welsh migration to Patagonia. We soon reached our own promised land at the foot of the slate quarry in Bethesda, and rushed up the hill for check-in.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I parked Darío and dropped my shoulder to reach for the reservation documents from my bag ... which was not resting on my shoulders. Or Romina’s. Or upon either of the bikes. I had left my bag in the back of the van. With my phone inside. Fool.

We had 15 minutes before our slot, so I took that time to redeem myself – Liam Neeson-in-Taken-style (ish) – by fishing out the business card that Gari had (thankfully) given us, borrowing a staff member’s phone to call his Ceir Cymru centre, obtaining Gari’s mobile number from his colleague, and finally getting hold of him to arrange a meeting later on. We then moved on to the relative excitement of the zip wire ...

We signed in without the reservation, ditched Rosie and Darío, and proceeded to get kitted up in some fetching red jumpsuits complete with full-body harnesses ready to be latched onto the two cables hanging over the quarry’s placid blue lake. Those cables being 1560m long, starting from a height of 432m, and along which we would be travelling head-first at a top speed of 165km/h (100mph)! We jumped into the truck and listened to the quarry's history as told by our guide on our crawl up to the launching platform, where we were greeted with incredible views of Ynys Môn to our left and Ogwen valley to our right. 

 
We waited in line for our turn, and I felt a growing sense of excitement in place of the dread that I had originally anticipated. Suddenly, Romina and I were both hanging over the platform edge for three minutes of suspended small talk before the command ‘Release’ was quickly sucked out of our ears by the rushing air that enveloped us on our descent down the wire. The time seemed to slow before it sped up once more, and I actually found myself wishing it was 165 miles, and not km, per hour as we flew over the lake towards the landing platform. £60 for a minute’s entertainment literally thrown into the wind!

We walked back to the base exhilarated, and, since there was no alcohol on the premises, I headed over to the burger van to buy a well portioned bacon roll and red velvet cake. These were not bought for our benefit, however, but rather they were packed into my pannier ready to hand to Gari as a gesture of HUGE appreciation once Rosie and Darío had rolled us down the hill to meet him once more. We parted ways with a handshake and Darío lazily chased Rosie’s tail up to Bangor, where we would take a short train journey (it was late by now, so I didn’t want to poke around in the dark and risk taking Rosie up the wrong alley) onwards to our night’s rest in Conwy on the north coast of Wales.

 
And, BANG, this is where our day reached its peak. Upon strapping up the bikes and settling into our seats, Romina glanced across and spotted four unopened bottles of Stella Artois among the mass of strewn empties lying on the carriage floor. We shiftily dragged the bag to our side minutes before an Incident Reporting policeman walked in to take photos of the ‘scene’ and continued up the aisle with the train conductor, who later returned offering us an abandoned bottle of cheap daiquiri. Feeling smug with the day’s turnout of events, we ordered pizza upon arrival at our hostel in Conwy and spent the evening eating and drinking in the canteen before retiring to our bunk beds. Good day.

We woke up without a schedule for Friday, and so we wandered into town to admire the imposing walls of Conwy Castle and perused the smallest house in Great Britain along the harbour. And, getting into the spirit of things, we even indulged in a bit of reverse role play on the roof as Darío and Rosie played mini king and queen to our subordinate positions as hooded little minions ...

Once Darío and Rosie had piped down, we decided to treat ourselves to lunch in a hidden upstairs cafe with some tasty cranberry and cheese pies and salmon and spinach fishcakes. But all this leisure and luxury kept eating into our afternoon, and soon we had to venture back up the hill to check out and change into gear for the final 28-mile stretch to our week’s final destination. I sought out directions for the trip by dropping into the local leisure centre, where we felt that Welsh warmth once again as one of their employees printed out a couple of maps to help us find our way onto the quiet roads towards Denbigh. With all this local love, who needs a smartphone map?!

As Darío and I slotted into position as steering wheels behind Romina and Rosie’s pacemakers for the last time, it quickly became evident that Romina had built up an impressive head of steam over the week as she powered her way over the asphalt in rush-hour traffic. Rosie was visibly quivering between Romina’s legs as we raced the final leg south from St. Asaph, and this aroused Darío into action as we overtook to lead the way to uncle Hywel’s house on the outskirts of Denbigh. 173 cycled miles on from St. Clears, we had made it.

And, doubly important, we had made it in time for dinner. With Darío and Rosie tucked away in the garage, we sat down to eat a beautiful chicken dinner with our hosts (and parents of the groom) Hywel and Eiddwen, who introduced us to their guests of honour (parents of the bride), Malcolm and Debbie, ahead of the next day’s celebrations. We were soon well acquainted and were regaled with stories by Malcolm about ransomed pumpkins and the integration of artificially inseminated queen bees, both of which are interesting topics best explored with the gardener/bee-keeper himself before you ask me to explain further. A couple of portions of dessert later and we were ready for bed; and when I say bed I mean the two-man tent pitched up on the lawn. Yet, all snuggled inside our heavy duty sleeping bags, the tent held its own in competition with the house, B&B, caravan and hostel that had entertained us over the course of the week. For the record, my personal favourite was the caravan.

We woke up hungry and foraged our way into the house, where we were soon joined for breakfast by my cousin Tomos and his wife Katie, who had just returned from their honeymoon beside Lake Como in Italy. We flicked through their holiday photos among the rapidly growing audience of relatives in the kitchen, before a visit to Ruthin market and lunch at the arts centre quickly brought us up to the time of collection ... when my parents, along with my brother Mathew and his girlfriend Becca, arrived in the touring van to take Romina and me over to the hotel in Halkyn where we would all stay the night. Darío and Rosie cosied up next to Simba in the back of the van for the remainder of the evening as we promptly returned to Denbigh for the wedding celebrations. 

Although I was seated for most of the night, mainly due to the two generous plates of hog-roast I had eaten rather than the accumulated mileage cycled, the party was a great climax to the week as all bar two of the family members we had visited on our trip turned up to toast the newlyweds. It was also a fitting end to our culinary tour of Wales, with the evening’s dessert offering up a selection of Welsh cheeses layered into the form of a wedding cake soon found swimming in a bowl of my chosen local chutneys. The ale and wine continued to flow as everyone mingled and made their way towards the night’s crescendo on the dancefloor, where a mixture of dad- and drunken-dancing dominated the tiles as the band signed off to a rendition of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Rollin’ on a River’.

Although already completed in distance, our trip was now over in essence too; for Saturday night’s celebrations had brought us back full circle in reuniting us with our week’s hosts and had returned Darío and Rosie to their significant others. Rosie was mine once again. But she had undoubtedly grown attached to Romina (as had most of my family along the way) and we were both sad to see Ro go as we dropped her off with Ann and Gwenllian in Aberaeron on our drive home to South Wales. The roadside shoulder rubs, English–Spanish(–Welsh) intercambios and bike-related double entendres were all things I would miss after a week of companionship on the road, yet I was ultimately grateful for the short time we’d had once more. And I even promised she could ride Rosie again in future.

Those who know me will have noted the significance of that last statement, as I don’t open this monogamy to a third party easily ... But, as Iris Murdoch once proclaimed: “Every man needs two women: a quiet home-maker, and a thrilling nymph” – so pray let us all meet again soon.

Daniel Bowen.